Stories, sagas and legends—who among us don’t know them? Always delivered with a tinge of brutality, these cautionary tales are a legacy of moral education from times past: inquisitive children alone in the forest are generally eaten by a witch; the ‘Soup-Kasper’ of Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter dies from starvation rather than eating his soup; anyone letting in strangers usually gets devoured; anyone who plays with matches gets burned; and thumb-suckers get their thumbs cut off. The list of unfortun...